The technology world has big plans for warehouses, and the Produce Traceability Initiative is forcing these plans to become reality. Although some produce companies have been slow to pick up on these new opportunities, others are moving forward for greater speed, efficiency, accuracy, and product safety. New warehouse systems not only improve operations, but bring a higher level of intelligence to the facilities, building on the so-called “Internet of Things” to integrate sensors and other data communications technologies into physical objects.
“There are many options for incremental improvement in warehouse technologies,” comments Matt Mandel, vice president of sales and marketing at SunFed in Rio Rico, AZ. “You need to look at anything that will elevate the final product to the end consumer more as an investment than a cost. To drive consumption of fresh produce, we as an industry need to offer better fruits and vegetables to consumers.”
With recent changes, running a wholesale produce company has become much more complicated than in the past and employing technology has become a necessity, says Jonathon Wood, vice president, Wood’s Produce Company, Inc. in Meadows of Dan, VA. “The biggest challenge Wood’s Produce has faced, as well as other companies, is that from the top of the organization down, everyone must be open-minded and willing to embrace change. When used properly, technology is amazing in how it can completely transform a business for the better, but if you choose to fight the influx of technology, it can be just as powerful in driving you mad.”
Of the current warehouse technologies produce companies are either using or considering, many relate to the Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI), though others include picking and packing, temperature monitoring and control, enhanced communications to link smartphones and tablets, overall warehouse management systems, and robotics.
“Due to the implementation of new PTI standards, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the always-present need to improve efficiency, produce warehouses are being modernized to reduce labor requirements, increase production, and create a better pack with the adaptation and the implementation of new technologies,” says Rick Salinas, food safety coordinator at Ruiz Sales in Edinburg, TX. “Many of these technological advancements focus on automated solutions to packing, inventory, and shipping problems warehouses face today.”
For Wood, “the primary uses of new technologies are focused on streamlining the picking, loading, and delivery processes.” A wholesaler handling both hardy vegetables and fragile fruit, the company also provides warehousing and cold storage services. As always with perishables, speed and efficiency are among the keys to success. Fortunately, he says, “There are many new solutions for picking, ranging from voice picking to elaborate bar code scanning systems.”
Scanning and Voice Picking
Technologies like radio frequency scanning and voice picking are valuable tools in making traceability less of a challenge. “Although radio frequency scanning and voice picking are not new technologies, they are new to many of our customers and have greatly increased productivity in their warehouses,” says Tony Milano, territory manager at Ronkonkoma, NY-based VAI (Vormittag Associates, Inc.), a software solutions firm.
The technology world has big plans for warehouses, and the Produce Traceability Initiative is forcing these plans to become reality. Although some produce companies have been slow to pick up on these new opportunities, others are moving forward for greater speed, efficiency, accuracy, and product safety. New warehouse systems not only improve operations, but bring a higher level of intelligence to the facilities, building on the so-called “Internet of Things” to integrate sensors and other data communications technologies into physical objects.
“There are many options for incremental improvement in warehouse technologies,” comments Matt Mandel, vice president of sales and marketing at SunFed in Rio Rico, AZ. “You need to look at anything that will elevate the final product to the end consumer more as an investment than a cost. To drive consumption of fresh produce, we as an industry need to offer better fruits and vegetables to consumers.”
With recent changes, running a wholesale produce company has become much more complicated than in the past and employing technology has become a necessity, says Jonathon Wood, vice president, Wood’s Produce Company, Inc. in Meadows of Dan, VA. “The biggest challenge Wood’s Produce has faced, as well as other companies, is that from the top of the organization down, everyone must be open-minded and willing to embrace change. When used properly, technology is amazing in how it can completely transform a business for the better, but if you choose to fight the influx of technology, it can be just as powerful in driving you mad.”
Of the current warehouse technologies produce companies are either using or considering, many relate to the Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI), though others include picking and packing, temperature monitoring and control, enhanced communications to link smartphones and tablets, overall warehouse management systems, and robotics.
“Due to the implementation of new PTI standards, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the always-present need to improve efficiency, produce warehouses are being modernized to reduce labor requirements, increase production, and create a better pack with the adaptation and the implementation of new technologies,” says Rick Salinas, food safety coordinator at Ruiz Sales in Edinburg, TX. “Many of these technological advancements focus on automated solutions to packing, inventory, and shipping problems warehouses face today.”
For Wood, “the primary uses of new technologies are focused on streamlining the picking, loading, and delivery processes.” A wholesaler handling both hardy vegetables and fragile fruit, the company also provides warehousing and cold storage services. As always with perishables, speed and efficiency are among the keys to success. Fortunately, he says, “There are many new solutions for picking, ranging from voice picking to elaborate bar code scanning systems.”
Scanning and Voice Picking
Technologies like radio frequency scanning and voice picking are valuable tools in making traceability less of a challenge. “Although radio frequency scanning and voice picking are not new technologies, they are new to many of our customers and have greatly increased productivity in their warehouses,” says Tony Milano, territory manager at Ronkonkoma, NY-based VAI (Vormittag Associates, Inc.), a software solutions firm.
Despite PTI requirements driving most warehouse improvements, being “able to read, decode, and track information through every step of product receipt, movement, picking, and shipping,” according to Milano, is of benefit to everyone within the fresh fruit and vegetable supply chain.
Without automation in the warehouse, many suppliers had to trade productivity for accuracy or vice versa. “You either slowed down to increase accuracy or sped up and accepted the resulting errors. Scanning and voice technologies allow a warehouse person to increase productivity and accuracy at the same time,” Milano says. It also gives management the ability to track any action in the warehouse back to the individual level, providing visibility and accountability to an area often difficult to monitor or track.
Eventually, Milano sees further integration of smartphones and tablets. “The greatly increased workload of complying with PTI will lead to greater adoption of technologies such as RFID (radio frequency identification), or other forms of no-touch data acquisition.”
RFID: Another Comeback?
As Milano noted, RFID is not new. The technology has been around for years and has been covered in Blueprints several times, including articles in 2005, 2009, and 2011. As the technology continues to evolve, Woods believes RFID or a similar tool will vastly improve the bar code systems currently in use within the next two or three years. “RFID could be a logical next step to making warehouses more efficient and adding another layer of depth to traceability.”
As warehouses get bigger and operations become more streamlined, firms have learned to deal with the inventory problems by tracking items as soon as they enter the warehouse, Salinas says. Newer solutions include RFID pallet tags with a layered mesh tracking system, or a voice pick system.
“Ultimately, although box level traceability is an important standard and first step in the industry, food safety and traceability will come down to individual item-level tracking,” Salinas points out.
“An RFID pallet tag allows the warehouse to ‘ping’ the location of a pallet, while a voice-pick system helps warehouse employees find, move, and track inventories by use of voice commands,” he says. “In addition to this, newer equipment, such as automated guided vehicles (AGVs), allow computers to remotely control, track, and move inventory without the assistance of human hands.”
A type of forklift vehicle, AGVs are wirelessly linked to a warehouse’s management system, notes Lew Manci, vice president of engineering for Crown Equipment Corporation in New Bremen, OH. “Crown envisions a connected warehouse in which the forklift becomes not only a roving sensor that reaches parts of the warehouse no other system is reaching, but also a hub that collects data from various other devices, acts on this data, and consolidates and analyzes it for other systems.”
Cooling, Storage & Shipping
Packing
For produce companies, packing is another activity that relates to traceability and is moving forward with new technologies. For example, there have been major advances in intelligent yield control packing systems for manual packing of soft fruit, table grapes, tomatoes, and various vegetables, according to Becky Hart, business development coordinator at United Kingdom-based Marco Ltd. in Edenbridge, Kent. “Such yield control systems are providing uplifts in productivity of 30 percent or more,” she observes, and better yet, a return on investment can be realized in as early as six months.
Another development by Marco, part of the company’s Yield Control Module system, is known as the “One Light – One Fruit” display which Hart says can “significantly increase line speeds for manual packing, especially for table grapes and tomatoes.”
The monitor shows workers how much more fruit is needed to fill a designated container. These technologies and others “provide easy-to-use packing stations with simple operator interfaces and real-time data to provide effective solutions for all of these challenges,” she says.
Shipping
Temperature monitoring technologies are another key to traceability, and this is one of the first things produce companies look to upgrade. “Right now, the easiest and most basic thing for fresh produce is anything having to do with maintaining and monitoring the cold chain,” Mandel emphasizes. “It is vital when dealing with highly perishable goods.”
This could be as simple as retrofitting older warehouses to refrigerate open docks, as much can happen in the 15 to 20-feet from the end of the truck to the refrigerated area—which has repercussions for both inbound and outbound produce. There are also improvements with temperature recorders.
Mandel says new tools not only monitor temperature and humidity, but can be coupled with GPS, so you can see exactly where a truck is located. In the event there’s an issue with temperature along the way, you can divert the load and offload problem pallets, or make sure the product is sold quicker than it otherwise might have if the cold chain had not been monitored or maintained.”
Inventory
Redline Solutions in Santa Clara, CA, has seen strong growth in cooler automation over the last year, says Todd Baggett, chief executive officer. “Produce companies are realizing the value of automating traditional paper and pencil inventory and order fulfillment systems. By assigning bar codes to pallets and locations,” he explains, software programs can manage “pallet contents, inventory movements, order fulfillment, and shipping.”
The use of ‘rugged’ laptops and scanners has also made life easier in cold storage areas or out in the field. The U.S. Department of Agriculture uses laptops able to withstand extreme temperatures and breakage, while a variety of hand-held devices are now resistant to water, temperature extremes, and nearly unbreakable.
“By using interactive, rugged barcode scanners, companies are able to instantly update inventory information,” Baggett says. With such real-time inventory capabilities, “Pallets are validated as they are staged or shipped,” he adds, and “errors are caught and corrected before the product is moved. This saves a tremendous amount of time, and typically boosts productivity by 25 percent in week one.”
Implementing Big Tech Changes
Wood’s Produce Company is transitioning to a new warehouse management system “that will utilize wrist-mounted computers and bar code scanners to manage inventory, pick orders, and ensure our traceability is top-notch,” says Wood. “Not only is the software helping us make fewer mistakes, have less waste, and bolster food safety and traceability, but advanced technology is allowing us to offer better, more personalized service to many more customers than we could before.”
While implementing the warehouse management parts of the software, it was important to have an open mind and patience, Wood relates. “With so many technology companies promising a ‘personalized’ system, they are writing and adapting code while your company is operating—so there will be bugs and extremely frustrating days. But the company’s management team has to keep a long-term view in mind.”
At Ruiz, the warehouse is not fully automated yet because it is not large enough to support such a system, “but we’re adapting, researching, and implementing many new features. We expect to have a fully automated system soon,” Salinas notes.
Before installing a major technology solution, Salinas says research is of utmost importance. “While it is impossible to have all the variables and answers in any operation, doing your homework can save you a lot of time, money, and headaches as you deploy a new system. Implementation and adaptation of new technology and innovations comes down to two things: cost benefit and necessity to your operation.”
An example of necessity driving technology is traceability. “Food safety and traceability are not something we’re willing to compromise on—this means that regardless of cost, you have to add it, because such a technology or innovation is integral to your business.”
Other challenges to keep in mind are the costs associated with employee training and future maintenance. “Automated technologies and sorting machines can make your warehouse run much more efficiently,” Salinas notes, “but the human factor is crucial… Technology is only as good as the user—or sometimes the programmer,” he explains. “Having a state of the art voice-picking system does you no good if you don’t train supervisors and managers to input orders correctly, and floor employees to use the voice system correctly.”
The Future
Will machines truly be running the world? Possible, but not likely—though high-tech innovations will certainly make life easier for those in the fresh produce industry. Looking forward three to six years, Salinas says the biggest innovations in warehouse technology will be a substantial increase in the use of robotics. “Wholly networked automated systems will improve until an entire warehouse can operate on just a skeleton crew of technicians, managers, inspectors, and data-entry personnel.”
